Heat is Your Computer's Enemy

It's a really great idea to make sure you clean the dust out of your desktop computer once in awhile. Here's why.

As dust builds up on the motherboard, (or any similar circuit board), heat will be kept close to the capacitors (or "caps" as some call them), and other components and the less heat that escapes, the harder those components will work, until one day they get weak enough to cause other parts to pull harder to draw the juice they need. It can be a cascading effect where one part of your computer gets weak and other parts have to work harder to maintain, until "poof"!

Don't let dust build up. It's bad because it doesn't allow heat to escape. Heat is your computer's enemy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regarding laptops. Do not use them for extended periods of time actually ON your lap because it does get hot. In fact, do not leave your laptop on anything soft like a couch or bed where heat can't escape. Your laptop will die a painful hot death.

Ideally you'd want them sitting on something cool like a metal table. But barring that I'd recommend spending thirty bucks and getting a cooling tray/rack (whatever you want to call it) that it can sit on, hopefully in a comfortable place for your hands to type. The aluminum ones are the better ones in my opinion because it takes a lot to heat aluminum and it cools quickly once the heat is taken away.

The one pictured here is a pretty good design. I'd prefer holes all the way across rather than just the middle part, but that's just me. I'm sure this design works great.

Keeping it cool,

I'm Big Mike